Chemists developed amyl nitrite as a vasodilator in the 1850s and began, in the 1960s, packaging it in glass ampules that doctors would pop open under the noses of unconscious patients to reanimate them. That same mechanism that prompted reanimation provided the relaxation of the anal musculature and a powerful rush that made poppers the reigning sex drug. Poppers became a mainstay of the gay social scene in the late 1970s. Prior to 1987, every AIDS patient acknowledged heavy consumption of poppers.74 Every porn shop, bar, and bathhouse locker room sold poppers.75 Party gays huffed them
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